EasyJet warns of ‘softening’ demand as Omicron worries consumers

EasyJet warned flight bookings had been hit by the return of travel restrictions as the emergence of the Omicron coronavirus variant threatened to upset the industry’s fragile recovery. The airline’s shares fell close to their lowest level in more than a year on Tuesday as the UK reintroduced expensive PCR testing for all international arrivals and along with other European countries restricted travel from southern Africa following the detection of the new Omicron strain. The company said there had been “some softening of trading” for the rest of 2021, although the impact from the Omicron variant had been less severe than when travel curbs were introduced earlier in the pandemic with shares recovering slightly by early afternoon to 492.4p, 2% down. Tim Clark, the CE of Gulf carrier Emirates, said the variant could lead to “significant traumas” for airlines, one of the starkest warnings yet over its possible impact on the industry. “December is a very important month for the air travel business. If that is lost, or the winter is lost to a lot of carriers, there will be significant traumas in the business,” he said. EasyJet said it was too early to tell if the industry’s recovery had been blown off course, but it slightly pared back its flight schedules for the rest of this year. The airline planned to fly 65% of 2019’s capacity in the current quarter — down from the 70% forecast in a trading update in October. EasyJet has been notably more cautious in its scheduling than low-cost rivals Ryanair and Wizz Air, and expected its planes to be 80% full over the rest of this year.<br/>